You have a great message to share and quickly put together a couple of paragraphs together for you blog. Looks good, right? But does it really convey your message to your audience?
Crafting a truly effective message takes a little planning and a lot of organization. It is not throwing a few dozen words together with some punctuation. Like an artist painting a masterpiece, your message needs to be carefully crafted such that you align your words in seamless brush strokes and engage your reader clearly from start to conclusion. Too many disorganized thoughts or too few undescriptive thoughts could leave your reader unclear about the subject of your message.
These following paragraphs describe effective writing practices which can help you write with greater clarity and ideally position you to influence your readers with a well-organized, logically flowing article. These best practices are broken down into five objectives.
Objective – 1, Clearly Present Your Topic: To present your topic well in a way which is clearly understood by your reader, it is imperative that you have a thorough understanding of the topic and know exactly what message you want the reader to take away from your article. It is very helpful to create an outline to list the points that you wish to make and then to prioritize the points in an order which leads to greater clarity of the message. The more concisely you can reach your point with clarity the better. You don’t want the reader to become unclear as to what the message is that you are trying to get across. Finally, you want to lead your reader to the conclusion of your article and your call to action if you have product to sell or subscriptions to be signed up for.
Objective – 2, Length: Ideally your article should be between 1,500 and 2,000 words so the reader can complete the article in a brief amount of time. If you cannot convey your entire message in less than 2,000 words, consider breaking the article up into pieces. Part 1, part 2, … etc. This is effective when you have several of your outline points which require a great level of detail. Breaking up into multiple parts also allows you to insert multiple calls to action in your article.
Objective – 3, Avoid Opinion: Stick to the accurate factual information as often as possible. Injecting personal opinion into your article could turn-off a segment of your readers. If there are well known examples that you can cite which proves your message to be accurate this can build your credibility. Along this same line of thinking, if there are also easily verifiable facts that support your message, these too can add value to your message. This credibility and value is worth gold if at the end of your article you have a call-to-action asking the reader to sign up for something or to purchase something. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule of personal opinion and that would be if you are penning a political view with the intent of generating discussion.
Objective – 4, Style:
Your reader may not be as informed as you in subject matters so it is best to avoid using acronyms without the full definition of the acronym. As an example you may be referencing oversight responsibilities and cite the acronym FTA. Many readers may take this to be the Federal Transportation Administration but what if your article is about a breach in an individual’s personal information related to their taxes. Readers may not know your intent was to reference the Federation of Tax Administrators and become confused.
Your basic intent is to convey your message so try to avoid using big words and avoid using street or local jargon/slang which may be clearly understood in your area but not many others. Write to the average guy and you shouldn’t lose a reader because they are unsure of the words used in your article.
Objective – 5, Structure:
Since you are not writing the next best-selling Scifi novel let’s keep it simple and keep the article to four key parts beginning with your TITLE. Use something that will grab a reader’s interest. Get creative.
Next prepare a concise INTRODUCTION where you quickly get to the problem or issue that the article addresses.
The heart of your article is the BODY where you detail why the topic is a problem or issue or benefit and transition to how you propose it should/could be solved or enhanced.
The CONCLUSION wraps up your article and where you get to make your pitch whether it be for people to sign up for an event or to be a subscriber etc or where you include your link to products and service which were your resolution to the problem/issue identified in the introduction.
The bottom line is that creating a well-written and organized article is not rocket science and you should not over-think how or what you want to say. Identify the topic in the introduction. Describe the topic (benefit, problem, issue, etc) in the body and propose a solution. Conclude with your sales pitch or subscription pitch and an urgency for the reader to take action now.
